Task killer

[pauladev]

For 99c you can buy XSysInfo which will free up memory before you run a memory intensive app. Can't be bothered to tap on all those wriggly icons.

If you've been using the iPad for a while free memory can drop as low as 7mb. No wonder safari has to reload pages....

This is the app I was looking for! I went for it, - not 99 cents for us privileged Brits, it cost £1.19 (which is $1.91), but from showing 6.6 Mb free memory, I cleaned and it jumped to 53 Mb.
Just have to see if there are any adverse side effects now.

 

[Nemesis]

I open the little task thing and get them wiggling, then just tap all the X's, it's pretty quick for me but I only have a handful of apps that I use.

However them running in the background does not consume additional resources, because they're not running, they have a 'save state' which is merely a few kilobytes specifying where you were and what you were doing.

It's interesting that I didn't even realize how horrible the multi-tasking feature is on the iPad until a few weeks ago. I would play games and use apps like normal without closing them down. Eventually (after having about 20-30 open simultaneously) I noticed my battery would drain faster than I could blink. We're talking 5-6 hours instead of 10-12 hours. After closing down all of the apps that were open, I was able to get MUCH better battery life.

It may freeze the state of the app, but running all of the apps in the background kills the battery like crazy over time. Apple should really implement some sort of "Kill All Apps" feature, so I don't have to painfully close each one.

 

[Mountainbikermark]

Thank you for this thread. I've been taken to school and learned a lot
Support Our Troops!!
This post was Tapatalk approved.

 

[saguaro]

Remember the ram is shared with the graphics chip so you'll never see more than 130mb free at it's cleanest.......

I have not yet found out how to 'see' the available RAM. Grateful if you would enlighten me.

The way I know how to do this is: jailbreak. In Cydia, install SBSettings. Within that, go to this screen:

View attachment 1294

Turn on Statusbar Free Mem (and date if desired).

You will then see this at the top of your screen:



If that last pic is not readable on here, it shows the date, time, and free memory in the top center.

 

[pauladev]

Jailbreak is definitely not for me. The point is, as Nemesis stressed, that Apple should have built a task killer into the system when multi task was introduced.
Interesting how this thread has developed from assertions that the open apps use little power, to confirmation as I thought that keeping them open is a cumulative drain. Use of XSysInfo has definitely confirmed this for me as I have seen it drop as low as 3.9Mb and then up to 93 Mb when I clean up.

 

[twerppoet]

Jailbreak is definitely not for me. The point is, as Nemesis stressed, that Apple should have built a task killer into the system when multi task was introduced.
Interesting how this thread has developed from assertions that the open apps use little power, to confirmation as I thought that keeping them open is a cumulative drain. Use of XSysInfo has definitely confirmed this for me as I have seen it drop as low as 3.9Mb and then up to 93 Mb when I clean up.

Your logic has a big gap. Apps use power when they take up CPU time (are running). Just because they are in RAM means little. Most apps are frozen when in RAM and make no significant difference in power drain. There are exceptions, like GPS, music, downloads, and a few others. Even then there is only room in RAM for four or five apps. Most of the listed apps in the multitask bar have long been removed from memory.

Any power drain issues have more to do with what you leave open than how many.

Not that this makes any practical difference if you run a lot of apps that actually do run background tasks. They still need to be removed if you want the best battery life. I'm only making this point for accuracies sake, and to hopefully head off some future arguments of the general type of my-iPad-does vs my-iPad-dosen't. It is about what you are running, not how full your RAM is.

 

[pauladev]

Any power drain issues have more to do with what you leave open than how many.

.

At the risk of turning this into a comment on the XSysInfo app, I have looked further into the figures. I started the thread looking for a quicker way of closing the apps which appeared in the multi bar, and I thought were using up a lot of RAM.
An explanation that these apps were frozen and using little or no power was advanced, but this was not borne out by my experience after manually closing each app. The battery seemed to last longer and performance was quicker when the multi task bar was not full of open apps.
Then I saw the reply about XSysInfo, which appeared to be what I wanted.
The figures for available RAM shown before and after using the clean function of the app were impressive. However even after using it, the app icons remained in the task bar, leading me to think that this app does not close open apps, but really just regulates memory usage.
After cleaning with XSysInfo I typically reach 80 + Mb free RAM. Then after manually closing all the apps in the multi task bar, it increases to about 128 Mb.
I would welcome an interpretation of this result, and still think that Apple should have thought of this problem when iOS 4.2 was introduced. As I said there are several Android apps which close selected programs with one click, and it is strange that one has not been developed for iPad.

 

[gibbfan]

Apple wants to sell more batteries! Come on .........they are dumb?

 

[pauladev]

Apple wants to sell more batteries! Come on .........they are dumb?

Just been drawn back to this thread by the seemingly irrelevant post above. The issue is memory usage not battery life.

In the meantime since Twerpoets last post, Apple has forced xsysinfo to emasculate its app and it no longer recovers memory, just provides system info, if you upgrade, and now the app is no longer on the App Market.
I don't think this is of benefit to users and in another post on the effects of poor memory management on ipad1 while using ArtRage, there is info on this.

"Over on Xzone's (the developer's) site, they talk about how Apple removed XSysInfo from the iTunes market.

Apple removed app from sale because of this feature. We were asked to
remove memory cleaning from app. That's why app was not sold from 1-st
september till yesterday.
We hope that we will be able restore functionality of our app soon. Stay
tuned!

Please don't upgrade and make a backup copy of version 1.4.4.

Two things:

1) At least they themselves are warning people not to update.
2) It sounds like they are hopeful that the feature may return in future releases (though Apple may think differently)."

The thread on the forum is here.

][Moderator edit: No links to external/other forums, please.]

It is a real problem in ipad1, and I now address it by rebooting more frequently, which is a pain.

Added after more searching: a thread from Mickey 330 a Super moderator

http://www.ipadforums.net/ipad-general-discussions/48062-xsysinfo-sys-actvity.html

"In defense of XSysInfo, it has gotten yet another update. Now, you pull the screen down (similar to pulling down to refresh) and it'll clean the memory. It's not as good as the original version - it's slower to clean and you don't have the deep clean option - but at least it does some of what it did in the first place."

This seems to have restored the memory recovery function, though I am not sure why this wasn't publicised after the update that caused the problem

 

[kristiiina]

New iPad

If you are willing to jailbreak there is a very nice SBSettings toggle to close all background apps with one button press. It is called "RemoveBG".

Hey, I have the new iPad, and have SbSettings. I can't find the RemoveBG anywhere. And you are the only one i have found to suggest using that 'app'...
Please help if you can?
Thanks

 

[EvilMonkey]

I am unable to pm you because of the 6 post qualification. Sorry it is off topic but just wanted to send this:

Thanks for your note about the Android Task Killers. I have read those threads on the Android and HTC Forums (Fora?), and have to say that I don't agree with the gainsayers from personal experience.
Once I had installed Advanced Task Killer on my HTC, I found that I had the perception that the battery life was distinctly improved. Nothing scientific about my test, but I have been using it for about 8 months, and have no problem with continuing as the updates are improving.
A free iPad Task Killer would be welcome - even if only for aesthetic reasons!!

Off topic, but even the developers of Android task killers say you don't need them (they did help about 3 years ago, but not now). That being said, the interwebz is full of people who still use them. However, there have been several people at work who were complaining about Android's stability and looking at iPhones, but as soon as I uninstalled the task killer, the problems went away. IMO, Google should just remove them from the market, or if devs were honest, they'd post it in the description. I can't seem to find the interview with Aaron La (the developer of Advanced Task Killer, which is one of the most popular ones) but even he admits you don't need it.

Just my findings. Every study I've seen (like this one: Task-Killer Apps: Will They Help or Hurt Your Battery Life? | PCWorld) says they hurt more than they help. At best, it's a placebo and at worst, they're hurting you.

My two cents.

 

[Mickey330]

Hey, I have the new iPad, and have SbSettings. I can't find the RemoveBG anywhere. And you are the only one i have found to suggest using that 'app'...
Please help if you can?
Thanks

That's because you were looking for the wrong name ... and the wrong thing.

The (free) tweak is called "Remove Background." Then, there is another tweak so you can have an SBSettings toggle - that one is called "Remove Background SBSettings Toggle." You can't have the toggle without the main tweak, so you might as well get them both. Then, after the install and respring, the toggle will be in your SBSettings so that you can turn it on.

One caveat. In my experience, Remove Background does not work well if you've set it up to have your SBSettings display in the Notification Center. I had to remove the tweak because almost every time I went to use it - I'd crash my device and it would respring (and sometimes go into Safe Mode).

So, now I use a tweak called "WeeKillBackground Pro for Notification Center." It puts a line in your Notification Center and all you have to do is tap it to empty your multitask bar. I have the Pro version ($.99, USD), which lets me customize the font (color and size) and the size of the line in the Notification Center. However, there is a free version available (WeeKillBackground for Notification Center) that only gives you a line in the NC (not customizable) - but it still works fine.

Remove Background may work for you. Regardless, here's two options for removing apps from the multitask bar.

Marilyn